UrtheCast Venture Unveils Its First Picture From Space Station

A crop of a larger image, showing Steer Town on the left and Moneague on the right. North in this image is not straight up but rather diagonally up and to the left.UrtheCast

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April 3, 2014, 7:23 PM GMT

The first official image has come down from the newest and most advanced Earth-facing camera in orbit today, showing over a hundred square miles of cities and rolling hills in central Jamaica.

The UrtheCast (pronounced Earth-Cast) system, which was installed (not without trouble) on the International Space Station at the end of 2013, is composed of two cameras. The Theia "medium resolution" camera took this shot; the full picture has a resolution of 3200x8000, or about 25 megapixels. The high-resolution device, which will capture video, is still being calibrated.

Eventually UrtheCast plans to provide free, constant, near-real-time video of the globe from far above — that is, when it's not being rented out to parties interested in a quick satellite snap of an area. Powerful cameras able to respond quickly to such requests are in high demand by everyone from law enforcement to disaster-relief coordinators.

A second image released by UrtheCast shows the city of Santa Cruz de Mara in Venezuela: